


A Hundred Paper Planes

by PersonyPepper



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (jask dies when he's young sometimes), Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Child Death, Death, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Apologizes, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Loves Jaskier | Dandelion, HIV/AIDS Crisis, Happy Ending, Jaskier | Dandelion Loves Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, M/M, Men Crying, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Professor Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Public Nudity, Queer Jaskier | Dandelion, Recreational Drug Use, Reincarnation, Repressed Memories, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Suicide, Therapy, War, ask to tag!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:00:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27910399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PersonyPepper/pseuds/PersonyPepper
Summary: “Right, of course— but you wouldn’t leave a man with croissants in his hands waiting, would you?” There is no flicker of recognition in Geralt’s eyes. Jaskier had learned long ago to dampen that disappointment of shared memories lost. It’s enough for the both of them that he remembers the back-alley fucking in leather jackets and leather pants, the huddling together under the sound of bombed lands and crying men.They die and are reborn; Jaskier remembers their pasts, and Geralt never does. This time, though, Jaskier thinks they'll get it right.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 65
Kudos: 140





	1. Chapter 1

He sees him again, in that same coffee shop. It had felt like a dream yesterday, catching a glimpse of star-white hair in the back corner of the store. It feels like even more of a dream now, even though they’re staring into each other’s eyes. He should look away. He should look away; it’s never worked before.

Does Geralt remember him this time? He’s never remembered before, no mention of an unruly bard, or a french royal, or a poor soldier, or a cheery hippy. But will he remember this time? All that they have been? Jaskier gives the man a half-smile, tearing his eyes away. His heart pounds in his chest as he pays for his coffee and a pair of croissants. If this Geralt is like any of his past lives, then he certainly hasn’t eaten anything in some time. 

“Good morning!” Geralt nods, says nothing as Jaskier takes the seat opposite to him. “Got you some breakfast, you looked a little lonely over here.” 

“I’m here to drink alone.” How dare a simple statement bring tears to his eyes? How dare that voice remind him of all the longing, the loneliness— he clears his throat.

“Right, of course— but you wouldn’t leave a man with croissants in his hands waiting, would you?” There is no flicker of recognition in Geralt’s eyes. Jaskier had learned long ago to dampen that disappointment of shared memories lost. It’s enough for the both of them that he remembers the back-alley fucking in leather jackets and leather pants, the huddling together under the sound of bombed lands and crying men.

“Let me tell you a story, yeah? Reminds me of you.” He sits in silence, a pair of coffees and croissants between them as Jaskier rambles stories of long ago, that are but stories to Geralt, and history to Jaskier. 

“So? What do you think? Three words or less.” Geralt regards him for a moment longer, and oh, how Jaskier missed being pinned down by those amber eyes, missed the comfort of being around his friend, and in some lives, occasional lover. Those lives had been the worst, always ending in heartbreak; either one of them had died too soon, or Geralt had chosen someone else and left Jaskier like he’d left him at that mountain a millenia ago. Maybe that’s why they keep being reborn, so they’ll finally figure it out. They are soulmates that simply never work out, bound by Destiny.

Bound.

Geralt would hate him if he heard that, heard his theory of why. Jaskier chooses to not think too much about it. 

“They are real.” Jaskier snaps his head up. No way does Geralt remember— dear heart, don’t you dare hope for it to be. Geralt takes a sip of his coffee, and glances out the window. “I study them. I study… us.”

_ The sound of righteous happiness fills the air, naked bodies singing, fucking, living. They are gorgeous, disgusting, and Jaskier loves them— the protest against war, the fight for peace. They flow with one another, blunt between pinched fingers and eyes closed as they dance. They are beautiful. Jaskier catches star-white hair out of the corner of his eye; Eskel, Lambert, and Vesemir are here in this life, too. Geralt looks at home, at peace despite the million people around him. Jaskier walks towards them, bare save for orange-netted pants that hide nothing, and asks him to dance. _

Jaskier feels his breath catch in his throat. “You— you  _ what?” _ Geralt knows. Of their past lives, can’t remember them, but he  _ knows _ . Jaskier isn’t quite sure that to say. 

_ The Earth shakes underneath them where Vizima used to stand a million years ago. They call it  _ France _ now; the plates have shifted, and Jaskier is in wonderment at how powerful Melitele’s Earth is to have moved its own land, and how much more powerful men are, if they can destroy it. Men shout from atop the battlefield, and there’s a shower of blood and dirt. Geralt grabs the collar of his shirt. “You have to run.” They both know he won’t. Neither have time to speak, so they press their lips together, and spend their last seconds sharing their last breath. _

“I study us.” Geralt bites into the croissant, eyes trained on Jaskier. Only now, he can see the glint of curiosity in them, academic glee. His stomach falls. Is that all that they will be in this life? A relationship based on study? Science? Jaskier clears his throat.

_ People are dressed in color, and black and white— here, it does not matter how you look. It only matters that you love, and that you scream for your love. Pink triangles are painted on every poster, every jacket; Silence = Death. Banners are printed with the slogan, and Jaskier yells right alongside the voices that fill Wall Street to the brim. “Do you want one?” someone asks him. Amber eyes look into his own, and for a moment, Jaskier is awestruck, speechless. “Do you?” Geralt is holding out a poster to him;  _ Aid Now  _ it reads, in block, capital letters. Jaskier finds himself tearing up— Geralt of Rivia, fighting for gay rights. They shout together till night falls, and well into the morning sky. Jaskier never sees him again, and dies months later.  _

“And what have you learned?” Jaskier takes a sip of his coffee, letting the comfort of the familiar warmth soothe how frayed he feels. “Anything interesting?” He masks his stuttering heartbeat with a mask of cool interest, and hopes that Geralt can’t hear it. 

Geralt gets that shine in his eye, the same excited twitch of his lips as when quotes from his bestiary are on the tip of his tongue. “You believe me.” It’s a breathless little sentence and _ ah _ , he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know that Jaskier remembers each life, each death. He doesn’t know that he remembers each kiss shared, and each life spent without even a touch. “This is…”  _ amazing, incredible, heartbreaking, _ “good.” Jaskier is helpless to the amused snort that escapes him. How many times has he heard that sentence, said in the exact same way? Excitement hidden behind nonchalance, always so determined to pretend he can’t feel.

Geralt hums. “What?” He asks, eyes narrowing as if trying to make out a particularly difficult track mark. 

“You have no idea,” Jaskier mutters, “how long it’s been since I heard you say that. And how I have the lilt of your gruff voice melt around those iron words memorized by heart.” Geralt smiles at that, a quirk at the edge of his lips. Jaskier’s phone dings from inside his pocket, a text from Yven to let him know he’s going to be late if he doesn’t bound through the doors immediately, likely. It’s a text that Jaskier’s received many times over. Not that he’s been late even once. 

“I’ve gotta go.” He scarfs down his croissant between digging out a pen from his bag. “Here. Text me.” He slides the napkin across, his number and name scrawled hastily on it. “See ya,” he manages to bite down the  _ dear heart _ but doesn’t manage to quench the instinct to press a kiss to Geralt’s cheek. He walks out of the cafe, and dares a look back. 

Geralt’s grinning his rare, wolfish grin as he looks down at the napkin, cheeks pink. 

Maybe it will work this time around.

Maybe they’ll get it right.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaskier’s phone buzzes just as he finishes wiping the table and throwing away handfuls of juice boxes. He adores children, but they can be… tough. It’s certainly not the worst job he’s had. Jaskier remembers the heat of cotton dress shirt factories, the hours so long that he’d be passed out in front of the building more nights than not. Geralt had been a White Wing, dressed like a bleached-white policeman and a filthy broom in his hands; always a man of the people, cleaning the New York streets off of vile, vile things.

Jaskier smiles to himself as he waves a goodbye to Yven and tugs his phone out of his pocket. 

_ It's Geralt. _

Eloquent, as always. Three dots dance at the bottom left hand of the screen.

_ I’m at the library. Join me. _

Jaskier kicks a leg over his bike, and tugs his helmet on before he coaxes Ziege’s engine into a rumble. Oxenfurt’s libraries have changed over time, but the college still stands proud. Jaskier remembers where there’d been chalkboards and magic; there are now tv’s and the internet. Humans, as vile as they are, are incredibly smart. 

_ Which one? _ Jaskier sends back, latching his helmet into place before kicking up Ziege’s stand. 

_ JAP-M Library. On Pontar St.  _

Jaskier, still unbelievably offended that they’d dare shorten his _Julian Alfred Pankratz Memorial_ _Library_ into _JAP-M,_ kicks Ziege into gear and flies down the street.

The library’s still open, students filtering in and out with their sweatpants and sweatshirts. He’d dressed in his flirty chemises and colorful breeches— yes, he’d dressed like a tramp, but at least he’d put some effort into it. Long gone is that life, but it was his first, and he holds it impossibly close to his heart. He smiles at the boy behind the front desk, before making his way to one of the more quiet corners of the library; it’d been his favourite then, behind shelves upon shelves and a false wall that hid the booth unless you knew where to look, and it’s still his favourite now. He has an inkling that it might be Geralt’s too, and is pleased to find a white head of hair bowed over a notebook that he scratches furiously at. 

“Knock knock,” a hideous little habit he’d picked up when he’d lived in the midwest during the Westward Expansion. Geralt snaps his head up, glaring at him. Jaskier  _ revels _ under the gaze that he’s missed so badly. He plops himself into the seat across from Geralt, “What did you want to talk about?” That twitch of his lips is the only indication that he’s pleased to see Jaskier.

Geralt sips his coffee, has been addicted to it since it had been discovered. “I never said I wanted to talk.”

“Oh?” Jaskier leans back in his chair, legs opening in playful invitation. “Did you call me here for something else then?” He wonders what life Geralt has led this time, if it’s happier than his past as a witcher, as a farmhand, as a starved child on the street, and wonders if he’ll be any different a man for it. 

Geralt sighs his long-suffering sigh— an absolute  _ classic _ — before sliding the notebook over. “Read.” Ever the bossy, grouchy man; that never changes, no matter when they are. Some lifetimes, Jaskier gets to discover his huffing laughs and the sparkle of wonderment in his eyes under night skies, and some lifetimes he doesn’t get to see him at all, having only the memory of a gruff bastard’s face melting into an easy grin to tide Jaskier over. 

The notebook is a leatherbound thing, and the page is a mass of running thoughts and half-fleshed out ideas. Geralt still writes in his horribly chopped, too-fancy cursive; Jaskier has lived long enough alongside him to be able to decode it. There are pictures glued to it amongst the coffee stains and scribbles, ancient paintings of Jaskier standing over a wyvern’s body and Geralt’s nude draped in fine silk— he’d missed seeing that one, can remember when he first saw it and burst out laughing like a possessed man— there are scans of licenses and Id cards with  _ Julian, Julius _ , and even a  _ Valdo _ (he’d felt particularly nostalgic that lifetime).

The page opposite is filled with information of Geralt’s past lives; Jaskier doesn’t linger too much at the picture of them kissing, basking in the sun and stripped down from their army fatigues. 

There’s so much evidence, and he’s quite sure Master Witcher Geralt would be hellishly disappointed in him.

Jaskier’s impressed, Geralt has done his research well, but then again, the man has always adored pouring over his books, be it bestiary or otherwise. “I’m not going to refute it, if that’s what you’re waiting for.” He leans forward to slide the notebook back to Geralt.

“There’s no mention of you from twelve-sixty-two,” Jaskier hides his wince at the mention,  _ if Life could give me one blessing  _ unfairly fresh in his too-long memory, “to seventeen-sixty, twenty years before the french revolution.” Amber eyes regard him with an even look, waiting for him to answer.

_ The ice beneath his boots turns red with each of his footsteps. He’d thought he’d die a happy, fulfilled man— he hadn’t thought he’d live too long, what with being on the path and all, but he thought he’d die with a smile at least, Geralt clutching his hand, he body of a felled monster sinking into the bog behind him. Oh, how fucking hilarious it is that his death is a tragedy. A broken bard, a broken heart, and a broken body to top it all off. The starved wolves are not too far away, he can hear them bound towards him. His limbs are twisted, bone sticking out and it gives him the illusion of having far too many joints; he thanks Melitele for at least numbing him. A howl sounds far too close. Best he dies before they find him. He blinks up at the sky, and his eyes quickly go from hazy unfocus to eternally unseeing on the side of that damned mountain. _

“Why?”

_ Jaskier is born in late July to a poor farmer and his husband. He’s born remembering, crying for food and attention as a baby does, just as much as he cries in fear for being alive again, and cries in agony at the fresh memory of Geralt shunning him atop a mountain. Jaskier grows; a boy passes through their town one day, of white hair and amber eyes, barely any older than himself. Destiny’s curse of being forced to continue life after Geralt’s cruel words atop the mountain are too much all of a sudden. The townsmen find his body in a ditch when he’s fourteen, neck slit and skin pale. No matter how he tries, Jaskier cannot forget the sound of his parents’ agonized cries.  _

Jaskier swallows, trying to forget the sound of the ringing cry of his parents over the centuries of finding their son dead, and looks up at Geralt with a smile that doesn’t quite reach his haunted eyes. “Fame didn’t suit me back then.” Thankfully, Geralt doesn’t press, though he can see the crease between his brows. 

_ But he has nothing to live for, cannot forgive, and cannot forget. He spends lifetimes reliving, and taking the first opportunity for death he can find, in hopes that this will be his last life. It never is. _

_ It takes long to forgive Geralt, and an unsurprisingly short amount of time to fall back in love with him.  _

“And it does now?” Geralt eyes the Id card around his neck, and cheery logo to  _ Sunshine Daycare _ framing his frankly hideous picture. He can’t imagine he looks much different now, and sneaks a hand to his hair to ease it out of its probable helmethead. 

“I see that you’re a bag of dicks in this life too, then.” He’s had his name spread far and wide in past lives, they both know, but he’d missed the novelty of bantering with his friend. Jaskier had chosen a calmer— well, as calm as can be with screaming, bubbly children— career this time around.

“You remember.”

The smile on his face grows sombre, though he tries not to let it. How many lifetimes has he lived? Cursed to remember each kiss and each death, or cursed to live with memory, but to never meet his love. “I do. I remember each of your dumb mistakes. When we were boys, you were caught once, trying to steal a horse. Earned yourself a good week of chores for that one from Vesemir; he ended up buying it for you though, always a softie.” Geralt’s eyes light up at the mention of his father, recognition and curiosity glinting in his eyes. Jaskier could go into a sonnet detailing each shade of orange and gold in those yellow eyes, could detail each bright little speck and the intelligence that shines behind them, coupled with inquisitive glee.

“Hmm.” Jaskier reaches behind him, and grabs his water bottle from his bag, mouth dry in the fit of nostalgia he can usually keep at bay. 

They say nothing for some time, Geralt lost in his thoughts— Jaskier studies him, and knows that there’s nowhere else he’d rather be. 

He has long hair this time, the same white that had draped over Geralt’s shoulders in that lone table in Posada. It’s cut differently, sides shaved— Geralt’s never been one for fashion, so Jaskier can only imagine the story behind that hairstyle. His thumb is wrapped with a bandaid, the other fingers’ nails bitten down to the skin. Ah, he’s not given up that bad habit once, not through all the millenia that Jaskier has known him. Dressed in a black shirt tucked into black trousers and donning black shoes, too, probably. Never been one for fashion, indeed, though he has always managed to clean up quite well. 

“I have a theory.” Jaskier looks up at him, and meets determined eyes. Always too easy to read, no matter how he tries. 

“What is it?” He takes another gulp of his water before slipping it back into his bag, waiting. He’s learnt patience over the years, wishes from time to time that he was still that middle-aged, sad little bastard who knew minimal of the world’s pain compared to what he knows now. But oh, how his heart had ached for a certain witcher to be his. And oh, how Jaskier’s heart aches the same for this Geralt now.

“A way to remember. I don’t think I’ve forgotten them; they’ve been blocked off.” A butterfly of hope flutters in his chest, beating against his ribs to be freed. Geralt looks at him expectantly, picking at his fingernails. 

“You don’t want that,” Jaskier finally whispers. Horrible things have happened to them, to Geralt specifically. It’s not that Geralt would lose his mind or the like; Jaskier knows first-hand how powerful the human brain can be, but, “You don’t want to remember.” 

“Something bad happened.” Jaskier laughs at that, a chuckle that leaves him breathless and on the edge of sobbing. 

“So many bad things have happened, Geralt.” He has to blink to keep his eyes from glossing over as he remembers, “So many.” Jaskier sighs. This life won’t be it, then, won’t be the one where they both die for good after a well-lived life. Geralt knows far too much to not want to know more, and the emotions that come with those memories will crush them both. Jaskier has lived long enough to know what knowing does to a man. He gets to his legs, wincing at the scrape of metal against the floor.

“Goodbye, Geralt.” 

“Jaskier—” he pauses at the desperation in that voice, not knowing where it comes from. “You kissed my cheek. At the cafe.” 

Fuck. He’d known that would come to bite him back in the ass. Jaskier shoulders his bag, and tries to stop thinking about how good his name sounds on Geralt’s tongue after decades of not hearing it. “Yeah. Sorry, my bad.” He turns to leave, and a hand shoots out to grip his wrist.

“You still love me.” Jaskier fights to breathe, lungs suddenly frozen. Some part of him knew that Geralt had known, he’d literally researched them after all, and the Master Bard Jaskier’s journal was one of historical academia’s greatest interests (he still curses himself for not burning it before he’d died, but he hadn’t exactly known that  _ he was going to fucking die _ , had he?) “We were more than strangers…” Geralt pauses, and Jaskier feels his walls wear down, “more than friends.” Dust surrounds him as memories come crashing. 

“We were.” His voice is small. In none other life had Geralt known of their past marriages, dalliances. Jaskier swallows, woefully unprepared to face this; it’s not like he’s ever had to talk of this. Every healer, uh—  _ doctor _ , he’d come across, had given him pills and conversations, labeling him all but crazy. And every friend he’d made had chalked it up to a weird dream or fancy. “We were many times, and we weren’t for many lives.” Geralt lets go of his wrist, and Jaskier sits back down. 

“I need to know.” 

“For academic speculation?” Geralt’s lack of answer is all the answer he needs. Jaskier sighs and sets his bag down again. “Fine,” he says, leaning forward in his chair, “fine. But you need to start seeing a therapist when it gets to be too much; they won’t believe you, but they can help you with the…” he trails off, “trauma. The pain. The confusion.” Geralt nods, clear that Jaskier is speaking from his own experience. “Promise me— you’ll lose yourself if you don’t work though it, and I’ve known you, Geralt of Rivia, I’ve known you for eons and I know you won’t if I don’t make you.” 

Geralt quirks his lip, spits in his palm, and holds a hand out. “I promise.” 

“I literally hate you.” But Jaskier shakes it nonetheless (he’s had far worse from Geralt than his spit). “Tell me how.” 

Geralt spends the rest of the evening explaining his ideas; Jaskier had forgotten just how much he adores rambling if someone listens to him, be it Her Highness Roach, or a simple bard Jaskier.

It’s simple enough. Geralt just needs to spend time around Jaskier, theorizing that Jaskier’s everyday words and actions would trigger interfered memories. Jaskier’s heart stutters as he explains how they’d need to move in together—  _ “Perhaps we should start with weekly outings first, dear.” _ — and be intimate with one another  and he’s all aboard, especially when Geralt reiterates keeping good on his promise to seek professional help when it starts. 

They plan to meet a week later, Friday, at nine at  _ The Fox. _

_ It’s not a date _ , Jaskier tells himself as he straps his helmet on. It’s not.

He waves goodbye to Geralt from where he sits in his chestnut truck (hideous on a car, gorgeous on a mare), and kicks up Ziege’s stand.

They lose each other in the traffic of the main road.


	3. Chapter 3

The days pass too slowly, and yet, he finds that Friday has come too soon.

Jaskier blows against the heat of his coffee, stirs in his sugar, and comes to sit at the table where Yven regales the epic tales of babysitting his niece. 

“She  _ kicked _ me, Prisc.” Priscilla laughs, eyes sparkling and head thrown back. She’s beautiful, always has been; her friendship has followed him for lifetimes, and though she doesn’t know, she’s the only thing that’s truly kept him sane. Jaskier takes a sip of his coffee. Not everyone is reborn; he’s damn blessed that Prisc is. His right thumb rubs over the callus on his middle finger as the warmth of his drink washes through him.

“Can’t believe a five year old kicked your ass when you take care of a roomful of toddlers everyday.” Prisc looks properly affronted when Yven steals a donut off her plate in retaliation; Jaskier snatches a cookie, not-date nerves forgotten in favor of winking as Yven holds her back from lunging at him. 

“Can’t have that much sugar for breakfast, you old woman,” he calls, shoving into his mouth in a single go. He better leave now before Yven loses his grip on her.

It’ll be a cloudy day today, no sunlight in sight. He refills the cup of lollipops and bowl of stickers at the front desk, makes sure the chairs are pushed in and toys are in their chests so the little ones won’t trip over them in their excited, wobbling run onto the floor. He flips the switch when Prisc and Yven walk back into the main room and Regan walks through the doors two minutes till opening, and a lovely little sign lights up at the door. Mx Sunny waves their plastic arm in robotic tandem to the little kids that play on the signboard, signaling the start of the new day.

Yven sneaks him another, likely the last, cookie behind Prisc’s back in a daring move, and Jaskier thinks today, no matter how it goes, will be fine after all. 

Probably. Maybe. The day passes far too quickly for his liking, and he soon finds himself pressing a kiss to Prisc’s cheek, and waving the other two goodbye. He takes a quick shower in the backrooms and changes into a silken shirt decorated with elegant hibiscuses. With a touch of kohl and gloss, he walks out the entrance door and locks it down after a final check. His faint reflection stares back at him above Mx Sunny’s open sign. He looks good.

Ziege is swift through the cars of busy Redanian streets, and Jaskier refuses to let his mind wander though his palms grow sweaty on the throttle. He pulls into the parking lot of the tav— bar, relieved that he hasn’t been stood up (Melitele knows how many times Geralt has abandoned him) but filled with anxious energy all the same. He’s dressed in a black turtleneck sweater, a necklace shining silver under the dim light of  _ The Fox and the Hound. _ Jaskier orders himself a beer, and an ale for Geralt, slips into the booth opposite to him with their drinks. 

“Hi.” Geralt nods at him, and takes the offered drink.

“I shouldn’t be surprised that you know what I like,” he mutters. He’s so stupid, and Jaskier loves him so much. The deep sound of his voice does nothing to calm him, and Jaskier takes a sip of his beer as he twiddles his fingers underneath the table. They look at each other in silence; he is nervous, but he fights the urge to spew nonsense. Lives have taught him when to open his mouth, and when to keep it shut. After all, they are here with purpose rather than two old friends catching up. 

Jaskier drags his eyes up from the wooden table to his face. A bard plays the guitar in the corner, their voice reverberating through the intimate pub through loudspeakers— it’s nearly perfectly tuned, and their voice is  _ just _ off key; his fingers form chords against the wood of the table, imagining his lute under his fingers— how perfect the song would be if it was on a lute rather than guitar. He wonders how he’d tune it to be just right, how he’d change the lyrics just so ( _ Damn  _ does not rhyme with  _ Jane _ ), he wonders if Geralt would like if he changed it to a tale of heroics rather than romance, or tolerate his singing at all this time around, and he wonders if he won’t be left abandoned atop a mountain cliff again to die and live and die and live and  _ die  _ and  _ li _ —

“Jaskier.” 

“Geralt.” It’s a breathless little sound. He clears his throat, and takes a sip of his beer. Not so piss poor these days. “How are you? How’s life been treating my favorite witcher?” 

“Witcher?” Geralt looks as amused as he looks intrigued. “Didn’t know those were real.” He shifts in his seat, eying the  _ musician _ playing the corner.

“Witcher and his bard.” Jaskier cracks a grin at him, and if it’s a bit put on, Geralt won’t know the difference. 

“Oh, ho  _ ho _ , the stories I could tell—” his eyes widen, hands raised in excitement as the memories of death, destiny, heroics and heartbreak vivid in his mind. “We even met a djinn once.” Not his most-cherished tale; those were late nights around campfires and early mornings behind roach; but a regaling tale nonetheless. Geralt doesn’t smile back, eyes growing distant. Jaskier always worried when that haunted look filled his eyes, be it in the aftermath of a sorceress or in the midst of a war, that look meant  _ pain _ . Geralt’s eyes bore into his.

“You were bleeding.” Jaskier licks over his lip, remembering the now-phantom pain in his once-swollen neck. “I made a wish. A stupid wish.” Geralt looks at him in awe, the slight widening of his eyes giving him away. “I was a monster hunter; Witcher.” Could really be so easy? That all Jaskier has to do is tell him tale after tale for his memories to show themselves like ghouls haunting an abandoned farm? “I  _ remember _ .” He does, and Jaskier fears it as much as he rejoices for it. He tucks his palms under his thighs. 

“You were right, then. About your theory; it does work. Always knew you had an academic inside you; I remember trying to teach you the tales of the Green Knight, and you called it hogwash.” 

“It is hogwash.” Geralt smiles at him, an earnest, private little thing, and suddenly they’re two morons in a bar, sharing a look knowing they’re about to be cheated out of coin.

_ “Three hundred crowns for your service?” The alderman’s face is swollen, pink in outrage as if they hadn’t negotiated the deal beforehand. Jaskier recases his lute, and swiftly rises to his feet. My good sir, he says, I’ll ask you to reimburse my witcher in kind for work he’s done. The man blusters, offended, and Jaskier looks at Geralt. Geralt smirks back. _

_ “Well then,” Jaskier continues on, “Fair’s fair, he’s a lowly witcher after all. Here, he’s even leaving the tavern because he’s some animal meant to be left outside. Now, Alderman Sir, pay me what you think the lowly witcher deserves. No! That’s surely too much!” Jaskier spends the evening lowering price after price, and ends up with two copper pieces stuffed in his pocket. “Thank you, Ser; my beast witcher awaits me in the forest, I will take my leave now, thank you.” _

_ Geralt meets him at their campsite, two burlap sacks filled to the brim with cloth, food, and all the money stored in the alderman’s house. They can hear his scream of outrage as they gallop far away from the town.  _

“And you were right to do so, it was a test,” Geralt hums in intrigue. “If you had dared enjoyed a piece by  _ Valdo Marx, _ ” oh, how he misses that stupid bastard, ”I would have left you then and there,” he pauses, “for a couple hours, at least.” 

“Valdo Marx?” Jaskier masquerades a smile with a grimace.

“Oh, don’t even say his name, that spiteful man-beast always wanted to rub every victory in my face that  _ my _ , not  _ his _ , songs won.” He can hardly believe it, that he’s ranting about his old rival in this not terribly dingy tavern to his best friend from long ago. It’s almost surreal, the amber-gold eyes that stare at him, though this time it’s with interest rather than distaste. He should be used to it, what with the lifetimes spent as lovers, but he hoards each of Geralt’s  _ I don’t hate you _ expressions nonetheless. The damage that a first heartbreak can cause, he supposes. 

Geralt chuckles into his ale, and draws another sip. “Tell me something.” 

“Something?”

The bastard shrugs and waits. Jaskier hums, and tries to keep the ecstatic happiness out of his voice that, not only does Geralt wish to listen, but he wants to hear  _ more _ . Every lifetime they grow closer, Jaskier goes through the same disbelief; this time is no different. “You fucked me in a van once.” If Geralt was a lesser man, he would’ve spluttered; the severe press of his lips on his forced-monotonous face conveys the same surprise. “Ripped my orange fishnets right off me; quite rude, I was a broke man living in that exact van you were about to fuck me in— we were in the anti-war protests. You made a brilliant hippie,” he hesitates, watching Geralt’s face, “Do you remember?” 

He shakes his head no, and Jaskier shrugs. “Knew it couldn’t be that easy to retrieve your memories. There has to be some sort of trick though—” he would like his brain to shut up right about now, thank you, “—and why are you so caught up on remembering anyways, why not wonder why we keep being reborn?”

Geralt leans forward, elbows resting on the table as he thinks. “I missed you.” He makes a face, his words all wrong, and Jaskier aches with how familiar that look is to him, “I mean, you were missing from me— I was missing  _ something _ . I thought it was Yenn, or a child— Ciri. It wasn’t, and I felt as if I didn’t know a large part of myself. And when I saw the sketch of your face in the  _ Pankratz Tome _ ,” that damned journal, “I— It was you. That I was missing. I have to remember, so I figure out why you’re so, hm,” he scrunches up his nose in frustration, “so  _ fundamentally _ a part of me, Jaskier.”

It hadn’t been academic glee that had shone in Geralt’s eyes, but rather happy excitement and fulfilment. Jaskier thinks he knows that exact feeling; years of  _ missing _ , only to  _ find _ , only to  _ belong. _ The longing is familiar; how many lives has he spent feeling it? And though it is familiar, it is no less painful. He thinks he knows the answer: Destiny. He knows he won’t share it with Geralt, for he cannot count upon two hands the many times Geralt has rejected such notions, and rejected Her will entirely. 

“And when you find your answer? What happens then?” Jaskier had long ago mastered the art of hiding insecurity, but Geralt has always seen right through him when he’d been paying attention. Ibiza, 1983 comes to mind, with Jaskier hunched over a toilet and a man with calloused hands checking his temperature tucking him into bed. (He only has a vague memory of silver hair reflecting flashing neon lights and those calloused hands, but if he takes Geralt’s hand into his now, he’s sure they’ll be the same.)

Geralt shrugs, nonchalant. “Nothing. Nothing happens.”

“You’ll just know one more thing?”

“I’ll just know one more thing.”

And though Jaskier understands, he doubts it’ll be enough to keep from being born again. 

Jaskier takes a swing of his ale, holding Geralt’s gaze from across the table. “Tell me about you,” he says. “Tell me about who you are.” He seems much more mild-mannered, more open to feelings, even if they are small quirks of his lip and minute movements of his eyebrows that Jaskier has memorized a million times over. He rests his head on his cheek, and listens as Geralt stumbles through his past.

The story is familiar enough, though Visenna had died rather than abandoned him, and Vesemir had been labeled his godfather. Lambert and Eskel are Vesemir’s sons, apparently, and Lambert, prickly bastard, had had a rough time accepting Geralt into the family; they’d bonded over dumping paint over Eskel’s head one summer and the three have been inseparable since, though Eskel’s still skeptical around anything even akin to paint.  _ “He never trusted us the same,”  _ Geralt says,  _ “he’d end the world for us, but around paint? He keeps his back to the wall.” _

Jaskier laughs, tells him he wishes he could’ve seen Eskel’s face. It’s been a long time since he’s seen the rest of the wolves, and he misses them so. Geralt shrugs when Jaskier tells him so:  _ “Come over sometime. We have dinners together every wednesday. I’ll text you.” _

He looks so relaxed under the soft yellow light of the bar, leant back in his seat and talking to Jaskier with ease. It’s easily one of the greatest things Geralt has done for him,  _ talk _ when he’d spent eons humming and grunting. Like this, Jaskier feels himself falling in love again— ha, as if he’d ever stopped loving Geralt. He could kiss him. He could lean forward and cup the plane of his cheek, thumb over the stubble there, and press their lips together. 

With that content look in his eyes, Jaskier thinks Geralt would slip a hand onto his shoulder, and kiss back.

“I should get going, I teach tomorrow.” Geralt smiles at him; Jaskier’s traitorous heart beats too fast all of a sudden. “Movie next time?” 

“Great! It’s a date.” Hm. Fuck. “I mean—” Jaskier, you stupid fool, why don’t you ever use that brain of yours, “—I’m looking forw—”

He hears huffs of laughter from across the table, Geralt’s eyes shining with mirth. “Text me the details. See ya around, Jaskier.”


	4. Chapter 4

Once, Jaskier had detested overcast skies. He’d damned the thick clouds that would block out the white sunlight and delve the world in varying shades of grey.

His pillow is soft under his head, and storm clouds roll closer— Jaskier had damned them once, for leeching the colors out of vibrant wildflowers and dullening the rich emeralds of tree canopies. _The world is loud,_ he’d thought, _and there can’t be anything more beautiful than the shout of a hundred voices singing, the fireworks of the summer festivals, and the brightness of the sun shining over._ There isn’t, he knows now, save for the rare quiet moments he finds when the sky grows grey and the world falls into pastel shadow. 

Cloudy weather is an ode to memories, a quiet day for remembering the gentle kisses in a shitty Paris flat above the reedy street bar, a quiet day for remembering warm skin pressing against his front. The mattress molds to him as he sinks into it, the ghost of old songs unfinished tickling at his lips.

_But the story is this,_

_She’ll destroy with her sweet kiss,_

_Her sweet kiss—_

How silly he’d been then, how young. Jaskier the Bard to Master Bard Jaskier; he hadn’t mastered shit save for his song, still so young with such little knowledge of the world.

The sound of rain taps against his window like an agitated friend demanding to be let in. Rain, he supposes, reminds him much of Valdo Marx. Marx, Marx who’d stolen his songs, been an insufferable lyricist when he’d cared to write his own music— a perfect arch nemesis; Melitele knows every bard needs one. He misses him and the banter between them. Jaskier lets his eyes drift closed, remembering the bright doublets they’d flaunt themselves in, the verbal lashings and falling into bed for hatefucks filled with unacknowledged admiration for one another. If Jaskier supreme lyricist, Valdo was an excellent singer, the voice of the Gods in him. It’s good to remember him, for all he has of those times are memories he doesn’t dare lose. 

Maybe Master Bard Jaskier had been young, or maybe Jaskier now is too old, has seen too much.

The insistent patter of rain grows louds, into even, hurried thumps. “Jaskier!” The thumps sound again, louder.

Either his house has caught on fire and a grumpy man with too much strength’s banging on his door for it, or Geralt of Rivia has something quite important to share. His stupid heart hopes that he’s there to simply see him, that he’s brought a drink like in the many old times. Dread takes him all the same, for as many times Geralt of Rivia has brought him a drink, he’s broken his heart in each and every life they’ve shared, the only constant between them. 

“Jaskier! Open the door!” Jaskier’s phone dings, Essi, his neighbor, telling him to either, quote, _let the fucker in or I’ll kill both of you._ What a way to go. 

“I’m coming! Hang on, you oaf! I’m coming,” he calls, the siren call of reminiscence forgotten in favor of Geralt’s company.

The floor is slippery under his socked feet as he jumps over Pegasus, his kitty’s black eyes following his movements from where she sits in a loaf in the middle of the floor. 

“One day or another, you’re going to regret doing that,” he mutters at her. She yowls, and tucks her face into her paws, giving him an unfairly adorable look. His weakness, those wide cat eyes that peer at him— witcher and cat alike, he’s never been able to resist. “Fine then, it’ll be your own undoing, you mark my words, Pegasus—” the door bangs again; Jaskier’s phone lights up with likely a series of furious texts from Essi. “I’m coming! For Melitele’s sake, you utter arse!” 

His door swings open to reveal a drenched Geralt of Rivia, white hair turned ashen with rainwater. He’s grinning, eyes a little wild— “Jaskier.”

“Missed me, did you?” he teases as Geralt walks in, a bit sheepish as if he’s noticing for the first time just how soaked he is as he trails water inside.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“I’m going to grab a towel,” Jaskier calls to keep himself from pressing a kiss to his cheek, locking the front door, “careful not to trip over Pegasus.” He doesn’t care to admit how fond he is of his drenched witcher who looks like he’s found the stash of wolf catnip and barely escaped Vesemir’s wrath for it.

“Pegasus?” Geralt echoes as Jaskier thrusts a towel at him. The black heap on the floor yowls in reply, chirping at the call of her name. He laughs at the mildly panicked look on Geralt’s face as she stalks closer and winds herself between his legs. “Cats don’t usually like me.” The wonderment on his face is gorgeous, lips parted as she rubs against his ankles and purrs in pleasure even as he drips all over her. It’s too easy to remember the same expression on his witcher a millenia ago, when children would bound towards him, calling him the _brave white wolf_ in their lisped commontongue.

The fondness Jaskier barely hides increases double fold as Geralt hums under his breath and shoves his jacket off before dragging the towel through his hair. His bag hangs off a shoulder, luckily waterproof, it seems; Jaskier remembers times where his songsheet would ruin under an unexpected pour from the heavens. “Sit down before you fall and slip,” he mumbles, and Geralt flops down without grace. Pegasus takes a happy seat in his lap atop the towel puddled there, mrrowing 

“Now, why were you trying to pound my door off its hinges,” the bard in him almost mutters _could find you plenty of other things to pound, namely my ass,_ but Geralt’s pulling the zippers of his bag apart, eyes shining as he thrusts a worn book into Jaskier’s hands. The leather is all too familiar against the slide of his palms, wrinkles etched into the binding as if mimicking tree rings, mimicking ages and alives, and beginnings. He can nearly smell the burning of fear, the scent of horse flicking its tail, and the crackle of wood as rabbit roasts over it. His journal, innocent and feeble-looking in his hands, feels almost out of place against the background of sofa and carpet; a relic from a different time. Jaskier’s finger tingle with the phantom feel of a quill pinched between them, and his mind wanders with the phantom feel of a witcher’s golds boring into him as he scratches away— 

“How,” he has half a mind to mutter. It’s less of a question, and more of an utterance of wonder. He thumbs over the _Julian Alfred Pankratz, Bard Jaskier_ etched on the front cover. It’s humiliation, that the things that he has written in the privacy of candlelight and empty rooms have been read by scholars and students alike, and amazement that it sits here in his hands, his history, his _life_ safe. Above all, it’s silly, so, so silly, the way the never-forgotten memories freshen in his mind and tears fill his eyes. Does Geralt know? The way they’d sit around a fire, inside an inn, and Jaskier would write, would draw the flex of his muscle sharpening sword like a young idiot in love? Poetry about the beautiful heart under layers of hurt and denial?

“How did you get this?” Geralt’s eyes sparkle with the same exhilarated mischief when they’d been two young men in the royal pantry on a scandalous late night raid. 

“I stole it.” Jaskier gapes at him, and Geralt’s smirk widens.

_His_ journal. A perfect, comforting weight in his hands, the only thing that had stood by him when no one else had. Was all that Jaskier had been to Geralt? A journal in bard form? He’s long forgiven him, and long fallen in love with him again, but the ache of a first lifetime does not leave him no matter how he wishes it would despise how he cherishes his first life. 

The journal is carefully cleaned of Jaskier’s death blood, of the viscera of starved wolves biting into the body of a dead bard, of the fingerprints of bloodstains, of the snow that had seeped into the pages— it is incredible, the way they have managed to so easily erase evidence of his first death, though, to them as they know it, he’s only had one death at all. The beginning of the end, he’d written, and what an uneventful end that had been. 

“Jaskier.” How Jaskier wishes to tuck himself into the warmth of Geralt’s body, to take comfort in the solid of his statue, the softness of his skin— he feels torn open, too raw and so bare to the world with the memories upon memories he holds vivid in his hands. “Jaskier, are you alright? You’re crying.” Pegasus yowls and hops to Jaskier, burrowing her head into the small of his stomach. A pale hand takes the book out of his hand, sets on the coffee table, and wet arms encircle him, pull him into a hug. Jaskier breaks down crying them, face pitifully shoved into the crook of Geralt’s neck, shaking with the lone weight he’s carried for a millenia, life after life, pain after pain he’s been unable to share, unable to tell the Geralt in his lifetime, and now— 

This isn’t freedom from the burden, but it is respite. Geralt _knows_. Geralt knows, even if he does not know each time they’ve kissed, fucked, loved, even if he does not know the fear, the confusion, the heartbreak and sadness, he _knows_ the past. He knows the past, and it’s a relief beyond words. The ghost of ages past haunts him more than he care’s to admit. Decades of death, of heartbreak and loneliness have worn him down and he doesn’t like dwelling on them, for he knows he’s the only one to hold up each memory, the weight of millenia on his shoulders. Jaskier, shaking in Geralt’s lap, sobbing wetly into his shoulder, realizes that he is no longer alone. 

He laughs wetly, pulling away. “You’re a bastard, you know that? Storming in here, turning me into this mess; bards don’t _cry_.”

“On the contrary,” Geralt says, “I didn’t think they did much else.” Jaskier chuckles, and pulls him back into a hug, relishing in the warmth of his body, the solidity of his being and is inexplicably glad that they are here, together in this lifetime, and Jaskier doesn’t have to suffer it all alone anymore. “I remembered something,” Geralt murmurs, running his fingers through Jaskier’s hair, from here his head is tucked into his shoulder, “You were a French Royal?” He huffs a laugh, “How’d you even get there? We used to—” 

“Sneak food to the poor,” Jaskier fills in, “my little servant boy,” he smiles, remembering how much taller he’d been when they’d been younger. Geralt hums, a smile quirking his lips. 

“Lifetime after lifetime— we’re bound, aren’t we?” Jaskier’s blood runs cold, chest freezes to ice. 

“We are.” The quiet of the room is stifling despite the pattering of rain. He’s not sure what else to say, too afraid to ask. _“I have never had a choice,” Geralt murmurs, nearly too quiet next to the crackle of trash flame, “And I never will, Jaskier. If I accept Destiny’s fate, then I never will.”_ Will he see it the same way? Being bound, tied, imprisoned with their fates intertwined? 

Geralt scratches gently behind Pegasus’ ears, the little miss delighting in the skitches. Geralt hums, “I don’t believe in Destiny.” 

“And yet,” Jaskier dares to whisper, looking into his eyes, “here we are.”

“Undeniable proof, isn’t it? I didn’t quite believe in rebirth, either. I’d be an idiot not to believe in Fate with the evidence,” he glances pointedly at the notebook in Jaskier’s hands, “right in front of me.” 

“She’s always been real. You’ve never accepted Her will.” Jaskier is tired. Hope dares lean over the edge of the precipice, dares to stare at the angry waters of Destiny that swirl at the base of the cliff, and dares to consider taking a swim. Geralt could tip him over, and Jaskier could fall, could die, and reborn, and reborn, and reborn; or fall, die, and be buried beside his lover. “Will you? With us?” _For me_ is left unsaid. 

Rain turns to hail as minutes pass. 

“Yes.”

Relief is bliss.


	5. Chapter 5

The door clicks locked, leaving Jaskier to the empty sound of hail against his window and the gentle clacks of Pegasus’ claws on the wooden floor. His journal feels odd in his hands, the leather and parchment restored and preserved with chemicals. His sister had shoved it into his hands in the middle of Lettenhove Hall before unceremoniously telling him to shut up— he smiles, stomach twisting. He can’t remember her face, nor that of his father, mother, or the stableboy he’d taken in hand when he was fourteen.

Jaskier thumbs the first page open. It’s a story of love, his journal, detailing from when he first left Lettenhove and met the Butcher of Blaviken at the edge of the world without an ounce of fear in his voice, and ending with heartbreak upon that accursed mountain.

_Lettenhove traps me, kills me. I am fire extinguished, flame burned out under the careful gaze of my father and snobbish doting of my mother and I cannot take their pitying eyes when I sneak off with the stableman’s son, thinking I am an aberration, thinking I must be fixed and cannot be fixed. My creativity dwindles, my mind grows grey, as does the sunlight, the wildflowers, and the beautiful brown of Alfred’s eyes. I have to leave._

Alfred. There’s a small sketch of him made of charcoal at the edge of the page; he has soft cheeks, just beginning to lose the scrunch of his baby fat, and his eyes are dark. Jaskier can imagine the rich of their brown, the gentleness of his smile and the callousness of his hands, almost remember them. 

_Ungrateful fuckers. The lot of them, ungrateful for beautiful music from the to-be-best bard on the Continent. They throw bread at me, which is nice, I am an ever-starving artist after all. Jokes on them, I’ll only eat their mouldy bread and come back singing louder! Oh, there’s a sexy man in the corner, very broody, very_ ~~ _sexy_ _gooselike_ _attractive_~~ _blast it, he’s going to leave before I find the right words;_ ~~ _attractive_ _beautiful_~~ _f ~~uck-me-over-the-table~~_ _witcher, here I come._

The flutter of butterflies he’d first felt when he’d first laid eyes on his witcher never quite wore off, no matter how many times he met Geralt. He smiles, the scene so clear in his mind as if it refuses to forget their first meeting filled with songs of abortion and a terrible attempt of seduction. _Bread in my pants_ ; Jaskier has been a child many times, but the only time he’d been innocent, truly _unburdened_ was his very first.

_Addendum: He has become my muse, the beauty and heroics that I long for has finally found me, found my song. I can feel song dance at the tip of my tongue_ Toss a Coin to Your Witcher _hellishly catchy, mighty clever of me, isn’t it? I can’t wait to write the tune; now only if this horrid bump on the side of my head would go away, stupid_ Torque the Sylvan.

He’d always known witchers were good folk, but it had been the first time Jaskier had seen heroics from _anyone._ He can feel the warmth of Geralt’s back, the rope tying the both of them together. _Leave off, he’s just a bard._ Noble witchers, and their noble mission to protect fragile, feeble, newborn humanity. He remembers the surety in which he’d decided to make their lives easier with his one very racist song, and a hundred ballads and songs to come. 

_Two shadows dance, silhouetted behind the canvas wall; the light I find from the tent that allows me to write, which, upon further consideration, is terribly ironic for the tent is exactly the reason I am writing at all. Yennefer is here. Yennefer is here, searching for her Cure, and I cannot compete, will not compete, for what point is there when she’s already won? The shadow of their bodies curses the ground beside me, and if I look closely enough, I can make out where they touch, how they kiss. Cruel is destiny to leave me like this. I have never hated her, but I understand why Geralt does. I might begin to as well; heart is heavy in my chest, and I am I ever-foolish to still think he would come back to me, would love me._

_This is the beginning of the end, I can feel it._

And what an end that had been, mauled and bloody on the side of the mountain the next day. He wonders if Geralt had found him, if he had mourned him, loved him at last with the remains of his limp body in his hands. Ridiculous. Geralt probably hadn’t found him at all. Jaskier sighs, and closes his journal, careful of Pegasus as he reaches over and sets it on his coffee table. “What do you think, Pegasus?” She rubs her head against his stomach, kneading at his lap before settling again. He shifts, sofa morphing underneath him to cup his body, and rests his neck against the armrest. They’re quiet for a moment, and the hail gives way to harsh rain. “Let me tell you a story,” he murmurs, scratching under her chin, “Once upon a time, there was a Witcher Geralt of Rivia and a Bard Jaskier. They never could figure out how to live…” she mrrows, nuzzling into his palm, “and they could never quite figure out how to die.” 


	6. Chapter 6

The first time Jaskier had been a boy, he’d dreamt. Dreamt of finding a lover beyond yonder’s describance, a lover that’d love him no less than he loved them. Violet had thrown a rose at him when he spent evenings voicing daydream after daydream, telling him to go give it to someone, to find himself a lover already. And so Jaskier went, offering a rose to each person he fell heads over heels for. 

All were either accepted or thrown back at him in rejection; the ones that accepted it never stayed, and Jaskier took himself to a rosebush when he found a lover anew. People were just… beautiful. A laugh he adored, a twinkle in an eye, a flush, a mole— it was incredibly easy to fall in love, for everyone had something lovely, loveable, but none loved him back, none loved him whole, just as he loved none whole.  And then came Geralt, reeking of onion ( _ death, Destiny, and heroics, _ he’d called it, oh how young Jaskier had been) and Jaskier hadn’t… loved him. He’d loved the color of his hair, and the kindness in his eyes. He’d loved parts of him, as he’d loved every person, and Jaskier hadn’t thought he could. Or that he would.

But then Geralt had spit vile words to him atop a mountain, and  _ oh _ , Jaskier had realized.  _ Oh. _

This was love. Love was the way his chest ached to pull Geralt close and tell him it’d be alright even as Geralt so vehemently pushed him away. Love was the way Jaskier desperately wanted to stay, heartbeat making him numb as Geralt turned away from him.

What a shitty, shitty timing that had been. And then, well, he’d gone and died, hadn’t he? 

“You’re distracted.” Jaskier hums as the growl whispers in his ear, soft breath ghosting his skin. “What’re you thinking about?” 

The movie plays on the large screen, sound too loud off the theater walls. “Love.” Geralt shifts in his chair as a startled laugh forces its way out of the Jaskier. “I forget that you can’t sense my lies anymore. Used to be able to hear the beating of my heart; said you could smell too, said it smelled something rotten.”

Geralt cracks a grin, wolfish teeth glowing in the dark room and amber eyes illuminated by the bright screen. “Too used to telling the truth?” 

“Too used to telling the truth,” Jaskier nods. On-screen, the wyvern howls something fierce before descending on the village. They were much larger than that, Jaskier thinks, they’ve got it wrong. Jaskier knows too-intimately the grace of the dragon-esque things, the way their scales shimmer and shine in a grand display of destruc—

“Jaskier?” He startles at Geralt’s voice, and turns to face his friend. “Let’s get out of here.”

The sun glows as they walk down the sidewalk, blinking at the bright of the sun after the dark of the theater. Geralt looks down at him, eyes pinched just barely and eyebrows tight; worry’s written clean on his face to a bard who’s spent lifetimes memorising each expression. “Don’t give me that look,” Geralt's face smoothes into something impassive, like a badly rolled fondant over a crumbling cake; it does nothing to hide the worry. “I’m just… remembering.” Reliving most-like. The hardest part of meeting Geralt is keeping the past memories at bay, his presence forcing Jaskier to remember, to carry the weight on his shoulders. Geralt will share the weight with each memory he revives, but till then, Jaskier’s left feeling crushed under the memories of lifetimes. 

Geralt hums, and wordlessly takes Jaskier’s hand into his own, familiar calluses brushing against Jaskier’s palm. “You still swordfight?” The man’s eyes take on that familiar shine, lips pursed together to keep the words from bursting out. Jaskier chuckles, woefully fond of his geek. 

“Yes. So does Ciri.” A little warrior princess all grown up. Jaskier had never gotten to watch her learn the world when she’d been a little lion cub and he a humble bard. He wonders what she’s like, if she’s grown into the fine woman her grandparents had begun raising her to be, if she’s as fierce as Pavetta and as loyal as Duny. Geralt gives his hand a little squeeze, almost in assurance that she has, as if he could read his thoughts. Ha, Geralt with magic beyond signs, that would be a thing to reckon, wouldn’t it? Jaskier gives his hand a small squeeze back. 

The sun’s well dipping over the horizon, Jaskier filling the silence with the latest gossip  _ — “And that’s how we discovered that she had a minor peanut allergy! And Victor chipped his tooth on the slide, that wasn’t too good — _ and random hums of song under his breath. 

Toss a Coin is impossible to sing quietly, the lyrics and notes demanding to be belted out at the top of his lungs; he barely manages from air-luting that solo he’d added to the original, and Geralt watches him with something fond his eyes, their hands still connected. “I loved you.” Jaskier shuts up. Geralt looks as if the words had burst out of his mouth, his lips pulled into a frown with thought. “A lot. Many times. I remember— the feeling. Of loving you.” He doesn’t stammer, stutter, but his words are unsure and curious all the same. “We died.” His eyes grow wide just minutely, his body still.  _ “Jaskier _ ,” Geralt insists, “There was a  _ war. _ ” The man’s eyebrows furrow. “I told you to run. Why didn’t you?”

What can Jaskier tell him? “I love you.” Fuck— “ _ Loved _ you.” As if he’d ever stopped loving him; through the heartbreaks and utter wrecks of emotion, Jaskier had clung to the only constant strong enough to get him through: his love for Geralt.

“You were stupid. You died.” Geralt’s words are low, filled with accusation. His eyes, though, are filled with haunted horror. Jaskier knows what he’s remembering: the droplets of warm blood from their brethren, the chill of the dirt their knees dug into dodging bullets with luck and none much else. 

“We died,” Jaskier whispers. “I loved you.”

They continue walking, the silence heavy but not stuffy, the both of them grieving the many lives lost and the cruelties they’d seen. It’s well dark by the time they return to the theater parking lot, Zeige parked next to lovely Roach in the empty lot. 

“I’ll set an appointment up with my therapist,” Geralt says in lieu of a goodbye. They’re sandwiched between their respective fish-themed vehicles, and Jaskier takes the chance to pull him into a hug, relaxing into the warmth of his friend’s familiar body and to the relief that Geralt’s following through with his promise. 

“Good.” He steps back. “I had a good time today.” Geralt hums, a pleased hum that returns the sentiment. “I’ll be up dreaming of your absolutely spectacular muscles now,” really, they’re stupid incredible, “so, send me a text, alright?” The witcher sees it for what it is:  _ I’m here for you _ , and nods a promise. “Good, that’s good.”

Zeige’s engine rumbles underneath him as Roach backs out of the parking lot. Jaskier drives home thinking about wyverns, wars, and love.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://persony-pepper.tumblr.com)
> 
> Toss a comment to ur writer :)


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